Light Verse (short Story)
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"Light Verse" is a
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...
by American writer
Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ;  – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...
. It was first published in the September–October 1973 issue of ''
The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...
''. It later appeared in the collections ''
Buy Jupiter and Other Stories ''Buy Jupiter and Other Stories'' is a 1975 collection of short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. Each story is introduced by a short account of how it came to be written and what was happening in Asimov's life at the time, and follows on ...
'' (1975), ''
The Complete Robot ''The Complete Robot'' (1982) is a collection of 31 of the 37 science fiction short stories about robots by American writer Isaac Asimov, written between 1939 and 1977.Introduction, ''The Complete Robot'', Isaac Asimov Most of the stories had be ...
'' (1982), and '' Robot Dreams'' (1986). The author has reported that he wrote the initial draft in one session and later had to change hardly a word in the final revision. This story details a small portion of the life of Avis Lardner, the widow of an astronaut, William J. Lardner.


Plot summary

After her husband's death, Mrs. Lardner receives a large pension, which she invests wisely, becoming very wealthy. She buys many valuable jeweled artifacts from a number of countries, and displays them in her home. She then takes up the art of light-sculpture, which fascinates many, but she refuses to sell her works and only paints them for her parties. Mrs. Lardner had become notable not only for the light sculptures, but for her quirky crew of robots, none of which had ever been readjusted. These robots maintained her household and guarded her valuables. She insisted that the maladjustments in her robots made them lovable and that it would be unspeakable cruelty to allow them to be "manhandled" at the factory to remove their maladjustments. A roboticist with the U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, John Travis, who has had a history of trying (and failing) to imitate her light sculptures, obtains an invitation to a party at Mrs. Lardner's home. At the party, seeing it as an act of kindness to Mrs. Lardner, he makes an adjustment to one of her robots, known as Max, whom he considers to be maladjusted. Discovering what he's done, Mrs. Lardner is furious at him, and reveals that Max is the one who actually does the light-sculptures, through a creative process made possible by his maladjustment. By adjusting Max, Travis has irreparably destroyed that creative process. Mrs. Lardner then picks up one of her artifacts, a jeweled knife, and kills Travis. However, after the fact, investigators note that Travis did not attempt to defend himself — after realizing he had destroyed the very thing from which he wished to learn, he had fallen into total despair and allowed Mrs. Lardner to stab him to death.


Similarities to other Asimov works

*The idea of a robot having creativity would be repeated in ''
The Bicentennial Man "The Bicentennial Man" is a novelette in the ''Robot'' series by American writer Isaac Asimov. According to the foreword in ''Robot Visions'', Asimov was approached to write a story, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, ...
''. *Light-sculpture was performed by Gladia Delmarre in ''
The Naked Sun ''The Naked Sun'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the second in his ''Robot'' series. Like its predecessor, '' The Caves of Steel'', this is a whodunit story. It was first published in book form in 1957 after being ...
''. * The idea of an irreplaceable creation made by a malfunctioning robot and irreversibly destroyed due to a thoughtless human was explored in " Robot AL-76 Goes Astray".


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Light Verse (Short Story) Robot series short stories by Isaac Asimov 1973 short stories Works originally published in The Saturday Evening Post